GAMING POINT OF LOU – E3 WRAP UP

For those of you who haven’t been following the Pint O’ Comics Facebook page this last week, I was doing my best to cover this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3). While not being one of the lucky ones to actually be in attendance, with the judicious use of the internet I was able to follow along in real time and get just as excited about all of the breaking news without all of the resulting Con Crud. What you now see before you is my completely objective list of the biggest stories / games to come out of the show. This list is in no particular order, they were just the things that resonated with me the most. So read on, and hopefully you agree.

1) Bungie Kills Cayde

Cayde-6, the loveable leader of the Hunter Vanguard and also voiced by the equally beloved Nathan Fillion is inarguably the most popular character in the Destiny universe, which is why it came as such a shock to all of us that “Destiny” developer Bungie decided to kill him off in a TRAILER (of all things) for it’s upcoming DLC “Forsaken”. This is no joke, the character is dead, gone, bye bye, see ya’ later. It was certainly a huge gamble on Bungie’s part to further anger an already angry community, will it pay off? We find out in September when we begin our journey for revenge.

2) The Embrace of Battle Royale

Here’s the thing, this was only a matter of time. Once the floodgates open it’s going to spiral, and consider E3 the floodgates officially opening. Following on the heels of COD:BO4 announcing a Battle Royale mode for its upcoming game. Battlefield 5 developer Dice took the stage at the EA conference and announced that its upcoming WW2 shooter will also include a Battle Royale mode. This means that two of the highest profile games, published by 2 of the biggest names in the industry (Activision, and Electronic Arts respectively) will be going toe to toe with the BR giants Fortnite and PUBG. Now it is probably only a matter of time before a BR mode is a “standard option” for all online competitive games, personally I can’t wait for the fad to die.

3) Microsoft Splashes The Cash

Microsoft has lagged behind the PS4 in unit sales this entire console generation, and one of the largest reasons is the lack of exclusives on the platform, sure it has Halo, and Gears of War, but compared to Sony’s stable it’s pretty feeble. So in order to fix this Microsoft did the one thing it could do in spades: SPEND TONS OF MONEY, and boy did they!!! Announcing the acquisition of five studios!!! Undead Labs (State of Decay), Ninja Theory (Senua’s Sacrifce), Compulsion Games (We Happy Few), Playground Games (Forza Horizon) and a new studio headed by former head of Crystal Dynamics, (Tomb Raider reboot) Darrell Gallagher, called The Initiative. This my dear friends was Microsoft putting the industry on notice that Sony’s stranglehold of exclusives is over. And while the fruits of the purchases may not be immediately evident, this is squarely aimed the the next generation of hardware.

4) Ghost of Tsushima stuns the world

Speaking of those PlayStation exclusives, Sony showed off the gameplay debut of its upcoming game Ghost of Tsushima. I’m not going to bog this down with words, except to say: This is THE MOST beautiful game I have EVER seen in all my years of playing video games. Just watch the video, I’ll let it speak for itself.

5) Ubisoft Cares

The entire theme of the Ubisoft event was “Community”, and nowhere was this more evident than in their official unveiling of The Division 2. When TD1 launched back in 2016 is was much maligned for any sort of endgame content. And Ubisoft worked tirelessly with the community over the following year to fix the game, and in what can only be described as one of the greatest turnarounds in video game history made Div1 (in my opinion) the best online cooperative shooter around. This brings us to Div2, Ubisoft is giving away 3 Free DLC’s in Year One Alone!!! That’s a giant shot across the bow to many other companies (*cough cough* BUNGIE *cough cough* EA *cough cough*) who have taken serious flak over their questionable monetization practices in the last year. Ubisoft knows it’s the community that supports their games, and this is their way of saying thank you.

6) Zigging with the Switch, where they Zagged with the WiiU

Nintendo has always been known for their first party stable of characters, Mario, Link, Donkey Kong, Samus, Pikachu (sort of, technically Pokemon are owned by The Pokémon Company but that’s all boring legalese) are all household names, but where Nintendo has typically failed is in their 3rd party, and indie developer support. Nowhere was this more evident than with the failure of the criminally underrated WiiU. Well if this year’s E3 presentation is any indicator Nintendo is courting 3rd party / indie developers HARD, and that’s a good thing. As popular as their Characters are, it’s not enough to sustain a console throughout it’s typical lifecycle. Announcing titles such as Fortnite, FIFA 19, Paladins, Starlink: Battle for Atlas, Minecraft, Dark Souls, and fantastic looking indie games such as Killer Queen Black, and Hollow Night does nothing but build excitement, momentum, and a healthy stable of games for their wildly popular console. The Nintendo resurgence is well under way.

7) An Online Wasteland

Bethesda absolutely slayed their E3 presentation, and nowhere was that more evident that in their announcement that their upcoming title Fallout 76 will be an ENTIRELY ONLINE GAME. Players will be able to take on the perils of the wasteland either solo or with friends, which is probably going to be the smarter option as the world is also populated with others players, who may not always have your best interests at heart. If pulled off correctly Fallout 76 has the chance to challenge for game of the year.

And Speaking Of Bethesda Slaying it……

8) Bethesda breaks the Internet..

So as I was saying above, Bethesda absolutely SLAYED thier press event, announcing an upcoming mobile game entitled Elder Scrolls: Blades. This is going to be a fully featured game with console quality graphics, now of course we have to keep our expectations in check, as it is a mobile game after all, but if it can replicate an Elder Scrolls experience even in some small part, that’s good enough for me!!!!

If that wasn’t enough they went on to break the internet with not only the announcement of a new Elder Scrolls game, but a BRAND NEW I.P. Entiltled “Starfield”. We literally have NO information on either project currently outside of what we see in their announcement trailers, but the fact that these games are in development is exciting enough.

Well that’s all for this time everyone, being able to dedicate a portion of my life to covering E3 from a distance has been a blast, as a matter of fact I believe I started writing for The Pint during last year’s E3 with the announcement of Samus Returns for the DS, so I guess E3 is an anniversary of sorts for me. It’s been a hell of a year for gaming and the future looks even brighter.